Saudi and the Western Style Education - Literature review Example

Literature Review Article Krieger 2007). Until 1975, the Ministry of Higher Education was not established. The purpose of its establishment was to help educate a population that was still in the phase of learning to write and read. No more than eight public universities catered for 22 million people’s needs till 2003. Saudi Arabia was transformed from being a country of Bedouins to a highly rich polity of the world ever since the end of the Second World War. Oil production by Saudi Arabia led to the country’s fast-paced development. Until 1975, there was no Ministry of Higher Education in Saudi Arabia, and it was meant to educate the people that were struggling with reading and writing skills. Only eight public universities in Saudi Arabia served a total of 22 million people till 2003. Four years ago, Saudi Arabia made a very strong endeavor to restructure and expand its higher education. Since 2004, there has occurred a three-fold increase in the budget of higher-education ministry and has reached $15 billion. A large part of this budget has been spent on establishing over 100 new universities and college across the country. King Abdullah has donated a sum of $10 billion from high personal funds in order to establish a science-and-technology university at graduate level that would make the university sixth wealthiest in the world. Alongside, the government has lifted a ban that had been placed on the private institutions for many decades so that free land would be offered and over $10 million would be attributed to scholarships as well as building costs to help it reach the level of Yale and Harvard in the Middle East. However, in order to establish a top-notch education system, there needs to be much more than just a seemingly bottomless bank. The country is notoriously insular and is the authoritarian ruler governing it has imposed strict religious and social restrictions, which makes it stand afar from the intellectual cultivating stage in New England. The director of the Center for International Higher Education who has been formerly a consultant to the Saudi government, Philip G. Altbach says, “It’s the most ambitious effort in the world right now…I wish them the best, but it’s a huge challenge given where they are at right now” (Altbach cited in Krieger 2007, p. 1). The first challenge facing the country has been solving a huge access problem as described by the deputy minister of higher education, Mohammed Al-Ohali. Chairman of the executive committee of the Board of Trustees at Al-Faisal University and managing director of the King Faisal Foundation, Prince Bandar bun Saud bin Khalid Al-Saud says, “We’ve been importing technology for too long” (Bander bin Saud cited in Krieger 2007, p. 2). The overwhelming focus of the Saudi universities has been on the social sciences whereas the conservative Wahhabi elite has historically been in control of the higher-education ministry and therefore, its major interest has been to churn out the imams rather than scientists or businessmen. Efforts of the reformers have been directed at changing not only what is taught, but also the way things are taught. Rote learning is given preference over innovative thinking in the typical Saudi classroom. Lack of enough emphasis on the research is another loophole in the current system. The king has donated $10 billion in order to bestow the new King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. “Life on campus will be free…Scholars can dream, think, and innovate with a lot of freedom” (Al-Naimi cited in Krieger 2007, p. 2). “We wouldn’t sign on to a losing proposition…We’re doing this because we want to be involved in a very important experiment – and it is really nation-changing” (Press cited in Krieger 2007, p. 3). The king will keep the institution under his personal patronage that would provide it with some protection from the more conservative forces dwelling in the society. Al-Faisal University is among the few nonprofit institutions in Saudi Arabia and among the first private universities that have been granted the permission to be established. Al-Faisal University is seeking help from the Western scholars in an attempt to model itself like the Western universities following the footsteps of King Abdullah University. A nonprofit consulting group in affiliation with Harvard Medical School, Harvard Medical International, is formulating the curriculum along with recruitment policies and the procedures of administration for the medical school. The engineering program is being designed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Cambridge. The focus of the curriculum will be on the development of critical-thinking and problem-solving skills in the students, which according to Al-Faisal administrators are currently insufficient in the kingdom. Another distinct feature of Al-Faisal University will be that it will be coeducational, thus serving as a positive change for the female students, a large majority of whom are presently taught by men at women’s colleges in the country through closed-circuit television. However, it will not allow men and women to interact unlike at King Abdullah University, following the legally mandated segregation of gender in the country. There will be split-level classrooms in the university which will enable women to attend the same lectures as attended by men, though they will be seated in the balconies surrounded by one-way glass. Entrance for women will be underground where they will be dropped off by their drivers, and from where, they will get to the stairwells, elevators, and floors that will be divided according to gender. However, since even such accommodations are not quite in line with the customs in Saudi Arabia; to start with, Al-Faisal University will provide access to male students only in order to obtain social credibility. “Philosophically, I would like to see women from Day I, but the reality is difficult…We’re probably a little ahead of where they’re going” (Goodridge cited in Krieger 2007, p. 3). “It’s not just about transferring the curriculum…It’s about transferring the Western culture of learning, the commitment to lifelong education. To ensure that, we need to get people from that environment” (Al-Kattan cited in Krieger 2007, p. 3). There is difference of opinion between the supporters and skeptics regarding the extent to which Saudi Arabia will be successful in importing the Western style of education into a culture that is primarily non-Western. Likewise, Saudi reformers are of the view that they will pick and choose the Western-style education’s elements that are aligned with the cultural and social standards of the country. Mr Al-Kattan and others are reproachful of the Arab countries’ attempts to completely import foreign universities in Saudi Arabia, the way Qatar did with Weill Medical College of Cornell University. “Cornell’s campus in Qatar has nothing to do with Qatar…You can hardly find a Qatari student in the university. Yes, they get Cornell’s reputation in Qatar, but wouldn’t they rather have their own people be at the level of Cornell students?” (Al-Kattan cited in Krieger 2007, p. 4). Skeptics are of the view that it is not possible for a university to compete with other universities internationally in a society that is so restricted. They observe the tendency of Saudi universities to fire professors for displaying opinions that are in conflict with the Wahhabi beliefs. Former president of the American University of Kuwait, Shafeeq Gharba who has authored “Studying the American Way: An Assessment of American-Style Higher Education in Arab Countries” says, “There must be some willingness to create a culture of openness. The more you put limitations, the more you go below international standards” (Gharba cited in Krieger 2007, p. 4). Gharba asserts that universities cannot select, “You either go all the way, or you will always mumble through” (Gharba cited in Krieger 2007, p. 4). These tensions are known to the Saudi leaders and they seem to be hopeful that universities will play a pivotal role in opening the mindset of the society at large. A consultant to the Saudi Ministry of Higher Education, Musadik Malik says, “A lot of the people behind these progressive reforms see higher education as a social-engineering tool…Obviously the culture is initially going to constrain what they can do in terms of reforming education. But in that struggle, education will also shape the culture and open many more opportunities for the future” (Malik cited Krieger 2007, p. 5). Expanding on the issue, Gharba says, “They won’t be able to limit this new state of mind to the classroom…Saudi Arabia is one of the places where people are starting to question more, particularly under a reform-oriented king, so reforming their education system will be like opening a Pandora’s box” (Gharba cited in Krieger 2007, p. 5). Article 2: (Sallam and Hunter 2013) The government of Saudi Arabia is making a lot of effort to modernize the country. This is also evident from the fact that the country has advanced from being 67th in the International Finance Corporation (IFC)-World Bank annual “Doing Business” Report 2013 to 22nd. The Wahhabi or Salafi Clerics form the second arm of the Saudi government. Presently, 37 per cent of the population of Saudi Arabia is below 14 years of age whereas 51 per cent of the population is below 25 years of age. The youth of Saudi Arabia is more complex compared to the preceding generation. A vast majority of the youth of Saudi Arabia is looking for some kind of change as is apparent in the blogsphere and social media. Nevertheless, they are still socially conservative and to a large extent, traditional both in their lifestyle and opinions. One of the major issues of Saudi youth is boredom which causes the males to linger around the shopping malls. There is limited access to recreational and leisure activities, which makes most of the youth spend time in the homes where they can watch television and surf the internet as a pastime. Although this has resulted in strengthening of the family ties, yet community integration has suffered as a result. Not many people are engaged in physical workout. People are sexually frustrated because of strict gender segregation, as marriage has become too expensive to afford for many. With respect to religion, the youth of Saudi Arabia tends to side with Islam’s contemporary view rather than the conservative approach accepted by the preceding generation. This has resulted in a slow decline of the influence of the Clerics upon the society at large. A new religious culture is surfacing as a result of the continued training of Saudis as professionals in the country. Tribal customs under the country’s patriarchal culture and the Ulama’s Sunni interpretation of Islam define the rights of women in Saudi Arabia. Restrictions enforced in Saudi Arabia vary from one region to another with Riyadh and the regions surrounding it being stricter compared to Jeddah. In Saudi Arabia, a guardian holds duties as well as rights over the person he/she protects. These rights have underlying themes of responsibility and modesty where men consider it an honor to protect women. As a result, women’s rights in Saudi Arabia are defined by Saudi custom rather than Islamic mandate. The extent to which Saudi society is conservative can be estimated from the results of a poll which suggested that 80 per cent Saudi women are against women working in environments where they have to work with men. In addition, not many Saudi women are of the opinion that they should have a political office as they think that it changes gender roles which is contrary to Islamic teachings. They believe that political offices exert an unwelcome influence of the western culture whereas women in Saudi Arabia are already enjoying a lot of freedom. People also have mixed opinions about the obligation on women to wear niqab in Islam. The first co-educational university in Saudi Arabia was opened by King Abdullah in 2009. In the same year, Norah Al-Faiz was appointed as the first women deputy minister of Saudi Arabia. From 2010 onwards, women were started to be represented in court for their family matters by the women lawyers. In 2013, 30 seats were allocated to women in the consultative assembly. The government has enacted new decrees against women’s violence and has granted them voting right and the right to run for public office in the local government elections of 2015. However, these reforms are considered to be of more symbolic value rather than substantive by some commentators. It is noteworthy that Saudi government and society have a deep conservative element that is directed at preserving the traditional role of gender in the society. Saudi women are advancing in education as female students getting secondary and tertiary education are outnumbering the male students. A major social experiment has been conducted by the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology by allowing coeducation and granting the female students permission to be on campus unveiled. Employment is yet another area where the rights of women have been radically liberalized. Women drive in the rural areas of the country where the rules are not strictly enforced. The Salafis or Wahhabis constitute Sunni Islam’s ultra conservative branch. A vast majority of Saudis follow Salafi teachings which are orthodox version of Sunnism and are based on the original practices of Islam. Salafism is associated with particular practices of tradition that are seen in the society and culture of Saudi Arabia today. Many events happened in 2006 that reduced the tension between Shia and Sunni sects in Saudi Arabia. Some restrictions on the Shia sect were relaxed by King Abdullah, the then monarch of Saudi Arabia, in 2005. References: Krieger, Z 2007, Saudi Arabia Puts Its Billions Behind Western-Style Higher Education, The Chronicle of Higher Education, vol. 54, no. 3, A1, A29. [Online] Available from: . [15 February 2015]. Sallam, AAEA, and Hunter, M 2013, ‘Where is Saudi Arabian Society Heading?’, Contemporary Readings in Law and Social Justice, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 141-157. Read More